


polytheistic

by sonatine



Category: Fire and Hemlock - Diana Wynne Jones
Genre: F/F, Friends to Lovers, Masturbation, Oblivious Pining, Oxford, The Yellow Wallpaper, all hallow's eve, poor time management habits
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-14
Updated: 2018-07-14
Packaged: 2019-06-10 10:19:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,918
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15289383
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sonatine/pseuds/sonatine
Summary: Fiona said, horrified, “You’ve got two days to write a 10,000 word essay?”“It’ll be fine.” Polly said this with the calm certainty of utter dread.





	polytheistic

Something was missing.

Polly came home from tutorial, skipped the squeaky stair, set it off anyway, and made a cup of tea. The phone yelled as soon as she walked in. She ignored it. It didn’t need any encouragement. The water settled into a boil; not chalky like the kind at home. Oxford was distinctly lacking in limestone cliffs, the seaside, or any sense of mundanity.

“Fantasy is for simple minds and simpler lives,” her Medieval Literature professor said. He’d glared down at the tattered paperback on Polly’s desk, hidden beneath her notebook.

Her notebook. That’s what was missing. The one she was using as a pseudo-calendar after her planner mysteriously disappeared. She assumed the mysterious part was Marlene, who accidentally checked the wrong mailbox every day.

The phone screamed again. Polly reached for it. If it was Seb, she was dumping him. For real this time. (She wouldn’t. She could never could seem to.)

“Thank God,” Fiona said on the other side. “I was worried you wouldn’t be home yet.”

“Do you know how much this is costing us?” Polly said, even while hearing an eavesdropping click. “ _Marlene, get off the line!_ Are you okay?”

“No,” said Fiona pitifully. “I’ve lost my keys and my purse and I’m stranded halfway across town.”

“You’ve _lost_ them?”

“I haven’t even got bus fare home. Can you come get me? I’ll owe you a life debt.”

“Where are you?” Polly asked, one hand in their emergency fund jar and another scavenging for an umbrella.

“The archives.”

Polly froze, one arm inside her coat. “By the cemetery?”

“I know.” She could hear Fiona’s grimace. “The things we do for footnotes.”

“I’ll see you soon. If I don’t drown on the way.”

“My hero,” said Fiona and hung up. So did Marlene down the hall.

A group of girls handing out flyers barricaded the walkway. _All Hallows’ Eve Masquerade Ball!! Saturday, Jesus College._ “Polly Whittacker!” said one. “As I live and breathe.” Another said, “Come to a social event, for Christ's sake?” They cackled. The steps were slick and the door stuck.

The bus rattled Polly’s bones. She dug her hands into her cardigan and tried to think around the chattering of her teeth. Vibration, not nerves, though as they approached the cemetery that might’ve been something else.

_Hold your breath,_ Fiona would say, a superstition she’d picked up somewhere —- perhaps from Hans, or maybe her cousin in North America — but now a habit that Polly couldn’t break. Affection contagion. She held it all the way past the gates, watching from the bus’ upper deck. No spirits in, no spirit out.

Spirits. The underlined date on her calendar finally came back to her. She saw her own handwriting, circled twice and highlighted. _1 November — Dr. Harlough._

The brakes jarred. So did the passengers. The bus driver announced the stop in a mumbled incantation. Thinking of damask, Polly scrambled down the stairs and into the rain.

Fiona was huddled in the doorway of the archives. She split into a tired smile, left dimple winking, and darted under Polly’s umbrella. The collar of her shirt, yellow toile, peeked out from under her coat.

 

* * *

 

“I would die for a bowl of bolognese,” Fiona said, falling through the door of their flat. “I’d martyr myself. I wouldn’t even demand sainthood.”

“I’d hold off on the cross.” Polly shut the door in Marlene’s spying face, who’d scurried out the moment she’d heard footsteps on the stairs. “We haven’t got any food.”

Fiona collapsed into the Tall Kitchen Chair. It whimpered. “Didn’t we do a shop this week?”

“We meant to. We skipped it.”

“I hate us.”

“We’re the worst.” Polly flicked on the light. It hissed displeasure at being awakened. Then winked out. Fiona fetched matches from the Junk Pile and lit leftover candles from a failed séance the week before. _You know what Jefferson’s like_ , Fiona had said, accepting the curtain being draped over her head with resignation, _once she gets an idea between her teeth._ Polly had left halfway through, feeling queasy.

The candles were harmless now, throwing dancing light onto the plaster walls. Above, a family of elephants started their nighttime routine.

“Ha!” Fiona pulled a can of tinned peaches from behind a pile of books. “And I think I have a pack of biscuits hidden somewhere. Don’t give me that look. They’re emergency biscuits. Non-shareable. Only to be consumed in crises like these.”

“You should be a solicitor.”

“Like your betrothed?”

“Stop.” Polly took a gulp of tea and gagged. It was her cold, abandoned cup from earlier.

Rain hammered outside. The kettle screeched. Fiona poured two cups and handed a fresh one to Polly.

Polly said, “I’ve got an essay due Monday.”

Fiona dropped her cup.

“I’ve been so busy with— My notebook’s missing. I wrote down the deadline, but…”

Fiona said, horrified, “You’ve got two days to write a 10,000 word essay?”

“It’ll be fine.” Polly said this with the calm certainty of utter dread.

 

* * *

 

The sun broke at four a.m. Polly broke 2,000 words at six. Fiona broke open the underside of her foot on a stray slice of broken cup. “I’ve always wanted a scar,” she said bravely, wincing as Polly cleaned the cut with alcohol. “I can reel in the bad boys with my war wounds.”

“They’ll have a job seeing it when you’re wearing shoes.” Polly held a handkerchief against Fiona’s bloody but otherwise unmarred foot. She felt horribly guilty. The skin was so soft. “Sorry for, you know, disfiguring you.”

Fiona leveled her with such a stare that Polly’s heart stuttered. “I’ve been thinking,” Fiona said. Polly braced herself for, _I’ve put up with you for seven years, but now I’ve had it_. “Monday is a bank holiday.”

Polly stared. Fiona gave her foot a little waggle.

Reprising her dabbing, Polly asked, “And?”

“And your essay is due Monday. But if it’s a bank holiday, the university will be shut.”

“So?”

“So how does your lecturer know you turned it in on time?”

“You slide them under his office door. He’ll unlock it at dawn Tuesday morning. Like the wretched beast he is.” Tossing the handkerchief into the sink, Polly reached for a bandage.

“So who’s to say you can’t turn it in at half-five?”

“The doors to the building are all locked until first lectures.”

“Unless you have a key.”

The phone shouted.

“Don’t answer that,” said Polly.

Fiona dropped her hand. “Prince Charming, I presume.” She glanced up and then scrambled to the dresser. Clothes flew everywhere. “Shit, I’ve got to go. You’ll be in the library today?”

“All day.” Polly could smell the musty books and rackety typewriters nailed down to the desks to prevent desperate students from borrowing them. The sun slashed a grimace into the peeling wallpaper. “What time are you off work?”

“Midnight,” said Fiona. “Polly. Polly? It’s midnight?”

Polly’s head jerked up. The library was deserted. She ripped off her walkman headphones. A tinny whine leaked out. “It’s what?”

“It’s midnight,” Fiona repeated, hands braced on the table. She hovered over Polly like an avenging angel. Or demon. “The librarian only let me in if I swore on the grave of my firstborn to drag you out of here. How many words have you got?”

“Er.” Polly scrubbed at her eyes. The lights were low and the shelves cast ghostly grins. ”Five thousand?”

Fiona bent forward, her collarbones bone white in the light. “A cakewalk. Come get some sleep.”

Polly allowed herself to be hustled out of her chair and through the foyer, narrowly avoiding a malediction transmitted via glare from Mr. Gallagher, the librarian. Fiona chattered down the High Street, but Polly’s head was wrapped in yellow wallpaper and wives in attics. A twee clothing shop leered at her. “He said what?”

“That he’s fancied you for ages, but felt you were quote unapproachable unquote.”

“Did you tell him I’m engaged?”

“I did. Futilely. Then he asked me out on his mate’s behalf.”

Polly’s head spun. Sleep was a long-forgotten relic. “Wait. Why are you telling me this? You hate Tim. And aren’t you dating Fred?”

“Please try and keep up,” Fiona said primly, stopping in a dark doorway. She pulled a large keyring out of her pocket and threw her shoulder against the gate. The door hissed at them. “Tim is a research assistant for Dr. Giles-Wellington. Because his father is chums with the board of the college.”

“Prat.”

“Posh prat,” Fiona agreed. Her fingers did a complicated dance against the wall. The lights shot on.

Polly blinked. “We’re at your work?”

Fiona, charming and lovely, was hired at the record shop in town centre. Polly spent _her_ evenings under lonely fluorescents of the local shop, ringing up milk and cigarettes and turning a blind eye to shoplifting teenagers. She hid her books under the counter and scribbled essay notes in the margins.

With a pitying look, Fiona said, “You need a good decade of sleep. Preferably a coma. But I’d settle for six hours.” She disappeared behind the counter, leaving Polly to stare blearily at the multicolored records lined up across the shelves. A handsome cellist started accusingly at her. She flipped that one around.

“And why do we care about Dickhead Tim the lecherous research assistant?”

“Because —” Fiona grunted, dislodged a lockbox, and gave a crow of victory. “Dr. Giles-Wellington is on holiday for a week. His sciatica is acting up again, poor man. And he hasn’t seen his daughter-in-law and grandson in ages. Brighton’s hideous this time of year, but some things can’t be helped.”

“Fiona,” Polly pleaded. The walls were staring at her again. _Disappointment,_ their eyes said. _Forgotten_.

“Okay.” Fiona emerged above ground again, red curls covered in cobwebs, something gold clutched in her hand. “Darling Tim has been stopping by Dr. Giles-Wellington’s office every day to water the plants. The office that just happens to have an adjoining, _unlocked_ door to Dr. Harlough’s.” She tossed the gold thing to Polly.

A key. “ _Fiona_.”

A burst of sound by the front door. Fiona hit the lights, plunging then into darkness. Polly felt a warm hand grab hers. They escaped through the back door. “Say ‘thank you, fairy godmother,’” Fiona whispered in her ear, and led them through the narrow streets. “You’ve just been granted a twenty-four hour boon.”

The sun stabbed at Polly’s eyes around ten. She stumbled to the kitchen, downed a pot of tea, left a cup as an offering on the nightstand by a sleeping Fiona, and stumbled back home as midnight slipped into Monday. Fiona looked up from her book. “Word count?”

“Two thousand left. For tomorrow morning.” Her vision was transformed into numbers and letters. The room was an L, dissected halfway by a slanted wall. She dropped her bag. It formed a squashed six on the floor.

Fiona tossed the book aside. She stretched, shirt riding up (a figure eight) and slid off the sofa. “Tea?”

“Please.” Polly voice cracked from disuse. She cleared her throat. “How was work?”

Fiona shot her an amused look. “I was off today. I went punting with Janine and Lucy. They said you saw them on the lawn the other day.”

“I did?”

“Yes, Rip Van Winkle. They also missed you at their masquerade murder ball thing.”

Polly had a vague memory of flyers and puns. “Oh yes. That was nice of them.”

“They said to give them a call when you’re conscious again.” Fiona placed, precisely, leaves in a yellow patterned cup and in a chipped black check one. She glanced at Polly. “I’ll remind you. On Wednesday.”

Fiona’s normally hazel eyes looked golden in this light. Polly shook her head clear. A bit of wallpaper peeled off and fluttered to the floor. She nudged it aside. “This place is falling apart.”

With a steady hand, Fiona poured out. “As are we. No need to be rude about it.” She placed the cup in Polly’s hand. “Got the key?”

Wallpaper and attics and trapped wives and a judgmental cellist staring at her, _How could you?_ and dim lights of a record shop. “Nearly, I think.” She caught Fiona’s look. “Oh for the office? Yes.” She patted her chest, where the key hung off her opal necklace.

Something shattered the floor above. Fiona glared at the ceiling. She folded herself into the Small Kitchen Chair. “Maybe they’ll be evicted soon,” she said hopefully.

Polly sat down too. She was a terrible friend and a worse flatmate. She _had_ paid rent this month, hadn’t she? “How are _your_ essays going?”

Fiona blew delicately at her mug. “I handed all mine in last week. I’m free as a widow.”

The phone rang.

Fiona’s eyes met hers. Polly clenched her teeth and picked up.

The door closed quietly. Fiona returned five minutes later, inexplicably with half a pie, and did the latch behind her. Polly was sitting on the bed. “How is his highness, esquire, then?”

“Seb is…” Polly had to clench her jaw again. Her head ached. Her head always ached when she thought too hard about Seb. It was easier not to; and to just wipe her thoughts blank. Like trying to shove your foot into a too-small shoe and giving up.

“I don’t understand this hold he has on you.” Fiona flopped onto her bed. Her bed was also the sofa during the day, and about three feet away from Polly’s. “Do you two…?”

“No!” Polly’s cheeks burned. The thought of having to drop out of university due to an unplanned pregnancy was— Well. She woke up all too often soaked in sweat from that very nightmare. If she were being honest with herself, Seb would probably be altogether pleased with that outcome. “A _doctorate?”_ he’d said over the phone last week. “But darling, how will you do that _and_ start a family?” She’d pretended that the line had gone dead. The marks on her hand from clutching the receiver still hadn’t faded. “But we’ve— I mean, we haven’t _exactly—”_

“Ah.” Fiona also flushed. They were too British for this. “It’s too bad…”

It was. Birth control may have been legalized in time for Polly’s mum to use (horrifying), but this was Oxford: an academic cesspool of latest studies and hot research stats. Too many women were reporting blood clots and heart attacks, male newscasters announced in grim glee. Right where they want us, thought Polly. Virgins or married. No grey in-between. Black and white like the tile in Seb’s familial London home. Next to the Bernini statues.

She woke in a mad heat. Kicking her duvet off, choking, she stumbled to the kitchen. The radiator had turned on automatically in the night — the calendar said 1 November even if the weather didn’t — and the room was boiling.

A piteous moan emerged from Fiona’s bedding. Polly threw open the window. She gulped in the fresh air. The scarce lights of the town twinkled until the darkness of the countryside swallowed them whole.

A crash from the kitchen brought Polly’s head around. Fiona was crouched on the counter, a bottle of wine in her hand and a tumbled colander on the ground.

“It’s 2am,” said Polly.

“It’s a bank holiday,” said Fiona, popping the cork. “And too late for tea.” A glass of red wine was placed into Polly’s hand. “You’re not going to let me drink alone, are you?”

There was something displaced about drinking wine in pajamas amongst bedsheets. If this were summer, the wretched birds would already be chirping outside. Now mid-autumn, the night air was dead silent. Liminal. Polly leaned against the wall, feeling Roman and expectant.

Fiona drained her wine and said goodnight. She turned over.

Polly let this happen, stunned and slightly irritated. Something again felt missing. But she didn’t know what she’d been waiting for.

 

* * *

 

She woke again at 5am in another pallid sweat. The radiator was off. This time it was her. She clenched her teeth and let her legs fall open.

It was easy habit to to keep her breathing quiet and not move too much, to prevent the bed from squeaking. So when she looked over to find Fiona’s eyes open, watching—

Polly froze. Ice shock. Fiona’s eyes, dark and wide, didn’t move. A flaming heat crept up Polly’s neck. This was how she died, then: a knife wound of embarrassment.

Fiona asked, voice rough, “Is this what you do with —”

“Don’t say his name.”

Turning over to face her, Fiona propped her head up, elbow bent. Polly’s throat was desert dry.

“Well?” said Fiona. “Go on.”

 

* * *

 

The next night, Fiona didn’t wait.

Polly had handed in her essay in a blind haze of panic. The plan went off without a hitch. The key worked. The campus was barren. She dropped off her essay, eyes trained over her shoulder, and then returned the key to a very high colleague of Fiona’s at the record store. She left with the feeling of borrowed time. Everything had gone too smoothly. A glass perched on a table’s edge.

She skipped dinner, falling straight into bed. She woke again at 3am, starving, and went to the kitchen to quietly devour leftover noodles.

Leaving the container in the sink — for dirty dishes long to replicate, and to deny them the opportunity would be unjust — Polly climbed back in bed. She looked over. Fiona was already awake.

Fiona didn’t mimic her this time. Instead she came right over and lay down next to Polly, lending her hands to the task. Two heads on one thin pillow, legs entangled, hands slick and sliding against each other.

By tacit agreement, Fiona banished herself back to the sofa after. Redrawing the barrier line. The wallpaper was quiet. Lights from outside winked through the window. Polly listened to her breathing, and then it was morning with the bustle of students on the street below.

 

* * *

 

Fiona came home, smiling and secretive. Polly narrowed her eyes. “Are you smoking again? You told me to yell at you if you did. Though I’ve forgotten the script.” Rummaging through her pocket, “Hang on, I wrote it down.”

“Stop, I’m not.” Fiona hung her jacket neatly on the hook. She retrieved Polly’s, flung over the back of the Small Kitchen Chair, and hung that too. “You still have that note? When’s the last time you washed those jeans?”

Polly said defensively, “Recent,” and loosened her belt. “What’s got you in such a good mood? Did you get your essays back already?”

Fiona gave her a strange look. Polly brushed at her face for any errant crumbs. She hefted herself to the sink. It was definitely her turn for the dishes. “Make me a cup too, please.”

Fiona’s brow furrowed further. She watched the water boil in silence and then poured out. Fiona never used bags, like Polly did, but proper leaves. Just like Granny. It was both endearing and anxiety-inducing. Polly couldn’t pinpoint the source; Granny hadn’t done a reading in years. At least not for _her_ , she realized uncomfortably. Not since she’d left for university. Not since she’d stopped scribbling fantasy stories and gotten engaged to Seb and left her childhood ambitions behind. Polly wondered if it was deliberate or just —

“I didn’t tell anyone,” Fiona said abruptly.

Polly took the chipped checkered cup. She swiped the hem of her sleeve over the ring it left on the counter. “About what?”

Fiona stared. “Our arrangement.”

“Oh.” Polly tugged at her collar. It felt itchy. “No, I— wouldn’t have expected you to. And I wouldn’t call it an _arrangement_.” An arrangement was what her boss had with the manager, when his wife wasn’t around.

“What would you call it, exactly?”

Polly missed the danger in Fiona’s tone. She searched for the extra sugar. The bowl was nearly empty.  “Just a bit of pregnancy-risk-free bridge gap, isn’t it?”

Fiona slammed her cup onto the counter. The handle broke off. Polly watched it tumble to the floor. “That’s two in a week. We might as well break the third and get it over with.”

Fiona said, “I can’t _believe_ you,” and stormed into the other room.

There was a great slamming of many drawers and stomping of heels. Polly stood stunned. She went to the doorway. Fiona had her back turned.

“Is it something I did? Whatever it is, I’m sorry.”

Fiona whirled.

“No. It’s something you _didn’t_ do. I didn’t know anyone could be so completely blind. Your head has always been in the clouds, but this is… This is really just…”

She gave a strangled scream of frustration. The slamming of many things resumed. Including, eventually, the front door.

Polly didn’t know what Fiona was doing the rest of that week, but it never seemed to involve being at home. Polly went to tutorial and returned to an empty flat. She went to the library and returned to an empty flat. She went to work and returned to light shining under the front door and burst inside, heart leaping, but it was only the kitchen lamp that Fiona, already come and gone, had left burning.

It was like living with a ghost. Fiona may as well have melted into the wallpaper.

Polly cooked for two and ate the leftovers for one. She did a shop and came home to recount all the things she’d seen and instead stood in the kitchen wondering how she’d let a life grow intertwined with another for so many years and not even noticed until one half had been severed.

On Day 7 of this siege, Polly came home from paying the phone bill in person because their bloody envelope had somehow gotten lost in the fucking post to find Fiona at the sink like the last week hadn’t happened.

Polly closed the door. She set her bag down. “Are we going to talk about this?”

Fiona flicked a look over her shoulder. She was elbow-deep in dishwater. “Your shoes? Absolutely. They’re leaking rainwater.”

“Fiona.”

Fiona drained the sink. “What’s there to talk about? I thought we could just pretend everything is fine and that nothing has changed.” She was using her accusatory and deeply sarcastic voice: the one hauled from the depths of Tartarus and usually reserved for a) the Tories and b) Seb. Polly’s heart throbbed.

“Nothing _has_ changed. I was trying not to make things weird. But I promise we can stop if I wasn’t—”

“I don’t _want_ to stop.”

The outburst hung between them.

Fiona stood with her back to the sink. They were of the same height, but Polly couldn’t look her in the eye; Seb towered over Polly. Fiona’s strong hands helped Polly haul a sofa up three flights of stairs. Seb’s limp hand rested like a vice on her lower back during every cocktail hour she was forced to be escorted to.

To give herself something to do, Polly stooped down. Her shoelaces were a soggy mess she’d need Ariadne to untangle.

“But we’re not…” The word _lesbians_ caught in Polly’s throat like a dirty swear. She gulped and looked up.

Fiona’s pupils were very wide.

“No. We’re not. You like boys. I like boys. That makes us something else entirely.”

Polly swallowed. “I think there’s a different term for that.”

“I don’t care.” There was a flush creeping up Fiona’s neck. A porcelain ginger could hide emotions no more than a lie detector. “I just like you. Even when you were an oblivious teenager. Even now, when you’re an oblivious adult.”

The blankness of Polly’s mind was receding into a high-pitched buzzing.

Fiona said, “Are you telling me you never thought about it?”

Polly said honestly, “I’d never thought about it.”

“You are _so blind._ ” Fiona heaved in one, two, three great breaths. “I’m going to Marlene’s.”

“Mar _lene’s!”_

“Yes. She’ll put my hair in curlers and tell me about her ex-husband. It’ll be dreadful.” The door rattled the shelves behind her.

Polly sat down heavily. She stared at the space that had just been occupied by a screaming Fiona. A banshee heralding a doom that was certainly Polly’s own.

The phone rang. She let it. The wallpaper whispered, clutching at her back. It sounded like Seb’s voice. The phone rang again. Polly turned toward it.  

“It’s late.”

Marlene’s voice was reproachful. Polly stood barricaded in her doorway, arms splayed between the jambs. Her foot was the only thing preventing Marlene’s bony arms from shutting the door.

“I know. Sorry for the disturbance. I’ve just come to fetch Fiona.”

“Fiona’s fine.” Marlene’s eyes glossed over in religious fervor. “We’re having a lovely time. She was in such a _state_ when she came over, poor dear. But we’re right as rain now, aren’t we, duckie?”

There was a snort from inside.

“My fault, I’m afraid,” Polly said. She craned past Marlene. Fiona sank back into the pristine floral sofa. The lights’ glow turned her red hair gold. A halo? A ring. “I’ve come to eat crow.”

Marlene _tsked_. She was furtively trying to shut the door on Polly’s ankle.

Fiona called from inside, “Go on.”

 

* * *

 

Polly’s hands trembled. The key rattled against the lock. Polly could feel Fiona’s body heat against her back.

It was Wednesday night, which meant the rubbish needed to go out and also the shower must be scrubbed, for Thursday Fiona had late tutorial and Polly worked the closing shift; and then it would be the weekend and the bathroom would never get clean.

Fiona came back from putting out the bins. She stood in the doorway of the bathroom, watching Polly scrub on hands and knees.

 

* * *

 

Dr. Harlough dropped Polly’s essay, with a grudging Distinction mark, onto the desk. He warned, “Fantastic foolishness will result in a nothing person with a nothing life.”

Polly slid the collated papers into her bag. She thought of yellow wallpaper; Fiona’s hair turned gold in moonlight; the curling yellowed corners of her paperback fantasy anthology; the gold ring she’d found stashed in Seb’s sock drawer and the nausea that had followed; yellow smoke from a burning plant; and the gold glint of the cellist’s glasses winking at her from the cover of a record: _Don’t forget_.

 

* * *

 

_60 Minutes, 1998_

MK: Now, Dr. Whittacker, your colleague Dr. Perks has been in the media quite a lot recently.

PW: [Smiling] Fiona’s always had a flair for the sensational. She once ran away to Germany with her father’s colleague when we were fifteen.

MK: _Fifteen?_

PW: Yes, but I don’t think the poor man did anything about it.

MK: ‘Poor man?’

PW: ‘Poor’ because I would have castrated him had he tried.

MK: Understandable. But let’s now move to your extraordinary turn to fiction: after so many years of academia, was it difficult to shift into a less… er…?

PW: Less acceptable field?

MK: I was going to say ‘less dry.’ What _did_ spur this change?

PW: Call it a compulsion. Luckily my husband and I have never been very conventional.

MK: I hesitate to bring this up…

PW: [Laughter] Then must you?

MK: [Laughter] Oh yes, the producer would kill me if I left it out. [Laughter. Prolonged.] There’s been a rumor that your husband — the cellist Thomas Lynn, for those of you living under a rock — has recently purchased a flat in London.

PW: Yes, he travels for work so often. It makes sense to have a base there.

MK: He travels that extensively, then?

PW: That’s the job, I’m afraid.

MK: Don’t you get lonely?

PW: I’ve been at this university for many years now. My friends and colleagues all have tenure — lucky bastards —

MK: [Laughter]

PW: — so they’re not going anywhere anytime soon. And I’m quite comfortable in my own company.

MK: And Dr. Perks teaches in just the next town over.

PW: [Pause] Yes, there’s that.

 

* * *

 

_Hugo Awards conference; Santa Fe, 2070_

“— incredible, just absolutely incredible.”

“Now what you have to understand, Midge, that this was the 1980s. Homosexuality was only decriminalized the decade prior —”

“But marriage legalized by the new century!”

“Yes, absolutely. _However_ , there was still a pervasive prejudice — especially among the older generations (that is to say, Dr. Whittacker’s and Dr. Perks’ generation) — that would have made things increasingly difficult for them were they to be, to use the period term: ‘out.’”

“I feel I must point out that they were both professors at a university: which, as we know, tend to be a haven of liberal attitudes even amongst conservative eras.”

“Quite right, Jocelyn, but they were still _female_ academics. There is precious little range for error or, shall we say, deviation amongst university staff. Especially for those desperately inching toward tenure.”

“May I remind the panel that there are ten minutes remaining before we move onto the next session of the day?”

“Thank you, Dr. Schaffer. I _would_ like to bring up the possibility, as well, of a polyamorous relationship with Thomas Lynn—”

“— if they were —”

“— little evidence to suggest—”

“— desperate rumors by the media—”

“And the fact remains, Dr. Torres, that had they been loathe to publicly announce a lesbian relationship, a polyamorous admission would have been even more—”

“— three of them rented a seaside cottage together every summer for _ten_ _years_ —”

“I’m afraid, ladies and gentlemen and colleagues, that’s the five-minute warning. Please cede the floor to Dr. Uri, who will begin the closing remarks. There will be another open discussion on the personal lives of the posthumous honorees during the afternoon session. Now if you’d please all direct your attention—”

**Author's Note:**

> are we just supposed to ignore the fact that polly spends the entirety of the narrative [thinking about other girls, chasing after other girls, worrying after other girls, and admiring how pretty other girls are?](http://sonatine.tumblr.com/post/175854529114/catch-me-painstakingly-parsing-through-every-80s)
> 
> also kirstie jefferson is a lesbian and hooked up with nina all throughout secondary school bye
> 
> [the yellow wallpaper](https://www.nlm.nih.gov/theliteratureofprescription/exhibitionAssets/digitalDocs/The-Yellow-Wall-Paper.pdf) was written by one charlotte **perkins** stetson
> 
>  
> 
> [tumblr link](http://sonatine.tumblr.com/post/175888401294/polytheistic)


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